Portsmouth Buddhist Center

Religion Without God, Part 2: Sex and Morality - Going Beyond Puritanism
On Fri, 12 October, 2012 - 22:09
Candradasa
In the second talk in his ‘Religion Without God’ series, Candradasa considers the origins of negative views of the body and its desires in relation to spiritual life, as seen through the prism of Puritanism and its influences.
Tracking the Platonic ideal through St. Augustine we get a sense of the conditioning we seek to move away from as Buddhists while still wrestling with the key questions posed by our own experience of the connection between desire and suffering.
The third precept and the Buddha’s moral code generally are explored, and we get some sense of where we might look to find ways to work effectively with our strongest desires - order to lessen attachments and help us see reality more clearly.
Tracking the Platonic ideal through St. Augustine we get a sense of the conditioning we seek to move away from as Buddhists while still wrestling with the key questions posed by our own experience of the connection between desire and suffering.
The third precept and the Buddha’s moral code generally are explored, and we get some sense of where we might look to find ways to work effectively with our strongest desires - order to lessen attachments and help us see reality more clearly.
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It was also helpful for me to expand my first reaction definition of “sex” to include more than physical desire - but emotional & intimacy desires. Frankly, I doubt my physical desires have caused harmed, but potentially my emotional neediness has been overwhelming to others. There you go– I posted!